Blog
Favourite Things
‘Reaction’ magazine asked me to talk about my ‘favourite things’… talking, walking, potatoes, nuance, old stuff, book research and dancing 🙂
12 September 2020
Eglantyne Jebb bust unveiled
100 years and one day since Eglantyne Jebb and her sister Dorothy Buxton launched Save the Children at a packed public meeting at the Royal Albert Hall, I was very moved to see a new bronze bust of Eglantyne unveiled at the same venue. You can see a short film of the event here.
30 September 2019
Lyra
It is hard to imagine someone who was more engaged in the business of life than my friend Lyra McKee. Recognised by Forbes magazine as ‘one to watch’ in 2016, her career as both a journalist and an author had since taken off, crowned by a two book deal with Faber last year.
23 April 2019
Judging Women by their Agency
For International Women’s Day, Andante Travel invited me to talk about the female special agents of the Second World War, in whose footsteps I follow on their historical tour…
11 March 2019
Meeting the Nazi test-pilot Hanna Reitsch
Brian Unwin went for a flight with former Nazi test-pilot Hanna Reitsch in the 1960s, John Batchelor introduced himself to her in 1977. Here are some of the stories about her that were too late to be included in my book about her, The Women Who Flew for Hitler…
20 November 2018
The Ford Maddox Ford’s Page 99 Test
Ford Maddox Ford argued that if you open a book at page 99, “the quality of the whole will be revealed to you”.
Clare applies the Page 99 Test to ‘The Women Who Flew for Hitler’…
17 October 2018
Humour and Humanity: a day with 100 RAF veterans at Project Propeller
This year I was flown to the annual Project Propeller reunion of WW2 air veterans with a Spitfire pilot at the controls… Here are some of the stories from the sky and from a large airfield hangar…
2 August 2018
Clare interviews Michael Morpurgo whose uncle’s life was saved by the subject of her book, The Spy Who Loved
In August 1944, Michael Morpurgo’s uncle was scheduled to be executed. To his amazement his life would be saved at the last moment by Krystyna Skarbek aka Christine Granville, ‘The Spy Who Loved’…
29 June 2018
The Children of Calais
‘The Children of Calais’ by sculptor Ian Wolter is a riff of Rodin’s ‘The Burghers of Calais’, highlighting the humanity of refugees. It was unveiled by Alf Dubs who arrived in Britain as a refugee himself…
21 June 2018
Pilots and Spies, Enablers and Resisters
Pilots, spies, enablers and resisters… The Chalke Valley History Festival asked about the women in my books…
8 May 2018
How to Knit Gloves (for the Edwardian James Bond)
‘Gloves are not very difficult to knit…’ my teenage grandmother was having me on – but James Bond would have found hers useful…
Pioneers of Flight: Hitler’s forgotten Valkyries
Only two women served the Nazi Third Reich as test pilots, yet they ended their lives on opposite sides of history…
28 June 2017
Writing is My Weapon: Olga Tokarczuk at the London Book Fair
‘I treat language like a tool, like a fork and knife when you have to eat reality’, the multi-award winning Polish author Olga Tokarczuk told her audience at the English PEN literary salon at this year’s London Book Fair, causing quite a stir…
19 May 2017
Translating Lives
Eating samosas and drinking tea while taking refugee action…
29 March 2017
In praise of school libraries, and all who pass through them
I have just been delighted to help open a new Learning Centre and library at Saffron Walden County High School, in my voluntary role as the school’s Patron of Reading. It has been brilliant meeting so many of the students over the last year when giving book talks or hosting events by author friends at […]
25 November 2016
Twickenham’s Rose and Poppy Gates, lest we forget…
‘I shall never play at Twickenham again’, twenty-five year old Lt Ronald Poulton-Palmer reportedly sighed as he lay dying at Ypres on 5 May 1915… but he is among those remembered with the stunning new ‘Rose and Poppy Gates’ at Twickenham stadium.
12 April 2016
The Secrets of a Spy’s Jewellery
As a biographer I hope to get under the skin of my subjects, to trace their emotions, hopes and attitudes, as well as their words and deeds. Often it is the smallest things that provide the most personal insights; a postscript on a letter, the view from a window, or the choice of jewellery worn.
15 November 2015
Do Bunny Down: when shared war stories can help to heal
70 years after he watched their aircraft crash, Germany author Gerhard Bracke met American gunner Chuck Blaney…
28 October 2015
Distinction or Discrimination: Honouring the female special agents of the Second World War
The names of 75 women from 13 nations are etched into a beautiful memorial at RAF Tempsford, home of the Special Duties Squadrons during the Second World War…
7 October 2015
Leonard Mulley, a very civil hero
Traumatised when his arctic convoy was attacked by enemy aircraft in WW2, Len Mulley hoped to avoid water after the war. Yet he risked his life to save a drowning woman…
30 September 2015